School choice

Home education or Waldorf / Steiner?

The difference between Home education and Waldorf / Steiner is mostly one axis: when formal academics start. Home education sits between the two; Waldorf / Steiner sits firmly toward when the child is ready, and late is fine. They agree, more than most people expect, on what a teacher is and who else is there. Neither is the correct one. What follows is what each asks of a parent, and where the difference actually shows up on a Tuesday.

Home education

Education at home with a structure you choose — bought curriculum, your own sequence, or a co-operative with other families. It gives complete control over pace, content and values, and it converts one parent's time into the school. The outcome research is genuinely good and almost entirely drawn from self-selected families, so it should be read as what is possible rather than as what is typical.

What it asks of you

  • One adult's working life, in most arrangements
  • Building a social world deliberately, since it does not arrive with the building
  • Teaching subjects you are not confident in, for years
  • A plan for the transition back, if there ever is one

Waldorf / Steiner

Childhood is divided into seven-year stages and the curriculum follows them: imaginative play and practical work before seven, then formal reading and writing, with art, music and craft running through everything. The day and the year have a firm rhythm, the same teacher usually stays with a class for years, and screens are kept out entirely.

What it asks of you

  • Holding your nerve while children elsewhere are reading and yours is not yet
  • Accepting an explicit worldview — anthroposophy is in the foundations, whatever a given school says about it
  • Real participation: festivals, crafts, and a good deal of parent presence
  • Fees, in most countries
Side by side

Where they differ

Home education is the filled marker, Waldorf / Steiner the hollow one. Widest difference first.

L2When formal academics start
when the child is ready, and late is fineearly, and ambitiously

Home education sits between the two; Waldorf / Steiner sits firmly toward when the child is ready, and late is fine.

E3Technology at school
kept out until latebuilt in from the start

Home education sits between the two; Waldorf / Steiner sits firmly toward kept out until late.

E1Mixed ages
classes of the same agemixed-age groups

Home education sits toward mixed-age groups; Waldorf / Steiner sits a little toward classes of the same age.

V3What it is for
childhood is the pointit should set up university and a career

Home education sits between the two; Waldorf / Steiner sits toward childhood is the point.

C2Money and distancewhat your life allows
free and local, or it is not an optionwe can pay, and we can travel

Home education sits between the two; Waldorf / Steiner sits toward we can pay, and we can travel.

L3Measuring it
no grades, no testsgraded and tested regularly

Home education sits toward no grades, no tests; Waldorf / Steiner sits firmly toward no grades, no tests.

L4Where the curriculum comes from
it emerges from the childrena fixed body of knowledge, set in advance

Home education sits between the two; Waldorf / Steiner sits toward a fixed body of knowledge, set in advance.

E2Outdoors and the body
learning happens at a tableoutdoors and hands-on is the point

Home education sits a little toward outdoors and hands-on is the point; Waldorf / Steiner sits toward outdoors and hands-on is the point.

V1A view of the world
school should stay neutralschool should teach a view of the world

Home education sits toward school should teach a view of the world; Waldorf / Steiner sits firmly toward school should teach a view of the world.

Where they agree

Usually more than the argument between them suggests.

  • What a teacher is. Both sit a little toward an authority who instructs.
  • Who else is there. Both sit toward a community that shares our values matters most.

Neither of these is the correct one

Which fits depends on what you value and on what your week actually allows — and the second of those is the half nobody writes about. The questionnaire scores both.

See which one you are already doing